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Sunday, March 30, 2014

A couple of weeks ago I attended a workshop taught by Scott Christensen, held at a wonderful spot on the Cooper river, near Charleston SC. Despite a lot of rain, it was an incredible experience. The focus was on making quality paintings, and the things one needs to do to make that happen. And how those things involve your brain more often than your paintbrush. I don't have a lot I want to show, but this one I was particularly pleased with, and I think it illustrates some of what we learned.

The phase 1 photo shows my initial stab at the painting. With Scott's help, it became the version at the top. Though the orientation and even value of the road was in reality more like the phase 1 image, I think the foreground of the finished painting is much more effective and gives a better flavor of the place. What do you think?

Yesterday I attended a pastel workshop taught by Joelle Feldman. We all had so much fun! I'd never really tried pastel before, but someone had given me a wonderful box of Schmincke pastels and I couldn't pass up the opportunity to take a workshop with Joelle. She's a marvelous teacher, everyone in the class left with beautiful paintings and a smile on their face. We each did our painting three times; first on black sanded paper, which I wasn't too enthused about at first, but I very much like the result. We prepared two underpaintings, one with watercolor and one with a light pastel block in, washed over with alcohol. After those dried we worked with our pastels on top of them. Value was key, and it took a while for me to realize that I could go kind of crazy with the color as long as the values were good. A good exercise and lots of fun.